As soon as they invented the billing 'Super Saturday', you could almost feel the intake of breath. Fair enough, the collision of France and England could cope with any sort of hyperbole, but it did put a bit of pressure on the others, especially those sent out to raise the curtain, Wales and Italy.

Wales launched themselves into their final game as they had into their first, against Scotland. Almost with abandon. The passes out of the tackle were daring, requiring elasticity and trust: stretch yourself and believe in others to be on the end of the flick. Gareth Thomas, the new holder of the Welsh try-scoring record, was superb from first game to last.

But there was something missing. Something not so very super. A capacity crowd at the Millenium Stadium, for instance. You can sell, sell, sell the Six Nations as the best annual rugby tournament on Earth, but if there are empty spaces the claims ring hollow. Italy had to turn up in numbers on the field to compensate. They had to be at their obstinate best. Instead, their defence was at its most gap-toothed. This Six Nations, if it had anything to counter the charge that England had slipped back from their standards of last year, could at least say that the gap between top and bottom had closed. Italy, pursuing their first ever away win, found it all a little too much. Perhaps we expect a little too much from the Six Nations.

The World Cup has emerged as the global recruiting sergeant; the old annual championship is there simply because it always has been. No need to thump the tub; people will turn up because they always do.

But even before the World Cup made us a little too excited for our own good and placed expectations on everything that followed, the Six Nations was having to come to terms with a changing world. The championship was again compressed into a seven-week slot in February and March, but this place in the calendar is no longer sacred.

Sunday internationals do not work for the traveller; they are the work of television. And if once the Six Nations was the acme of the season, now the clubs and regions and provinces growl at the absences of their employees. Why are the superstars in camp again? If it's a bit of beauty or a binge you want, the Heineken Cup now offers more of both and at a better price.

So, from the outset, the Six Nations was up against it this year. It was bound to suffer from a World Cup hangover, and here were all these grumbling pains in the gut to boot.

England, as befits the world's premier rugby nation, saved the day, although not precisely in accordance with the plan. Sir Clive, fresh from ennoblement, provided good lines as always, but not because he was happy with the purr of his engine. Instead, he was scratchy for weeks on end.

Every time he wanted to talk about the emergence of Olly Barkley he found himself talking about tickets falling into the wrong hands. You can tell how cock-eyed the commercial world of English rugby has become when Mike Burton, once the ultimate poacher of a West Stand pair, blew the whistle on behalf of the purveyors of official corporate hospitality. Props of the old school, now pillars of the new order: it's a funny business.

Woodward also wanted to tell us about progress. About how this latest team was going to be better than the last. Fair enough, and good on Sir C for being the first to view Martin Johnson and Jonny Wilkinson as anything but indispensable, but along came Ireland.

If England provided the best storylines and the best black-market tickets, Ireland produced the best rugby. Or at least they did after the false start in Paris. They say you should play the French in Paris sooner rather than later, but, hell, if you're a little rusty yourselves and you haven't got Brian O'Driscoll fit, you don't want to be playing France anywhere.

Anyway, with defeat in Paris under their belt, Ireland were wonderful. Their stand-ins stood in beautifully: Shane Byrne, for example, for Keith Wood. The stars starred: O'Driscoll on his return, and the mighty Paul O'Connell. And the find of the season was found. England had Barkley, but Ireland had Gordon D'Arcy.

You can dance your way into the headlines once, maybe twice. But then you become the known danger, he who must be watched. And still the centre kept on skipping out of tackles. Brilliant. And a reformed larrikin, too. Out of the gutter and into the limelight. Smashing.

The French couldn't do such a thing. Part of the problem of the Six Nations is to do with image. Sir Clive plays his role of irascible English eccentric to perfection; John Kirwan, for a 6ft 2in Kiwi blondie, is Italian all over; Ireland come up with a D'Arcy straight from Irish folklore. But the French are not very French any more.

They are good, no doubt about it, but they were not themselves in the Six Nations. Where does the national stereotype go when you need it?

France's defence was fantastically well organised and very... English, choreographed as it was by little David Ellis. Their line-out was efficient - what a disgusting adjective to apply to French rugby. Their discipline, impeccable. How sad.